Saturday, October 28, 2006

Nessiage

The New Jersey court has said that people in gay relationships constitutionally have the same rights as those in heterosexual relations… They must be equal, in every right… Everything but the name.

I’ve the perfect solution.

It’s called “Nessiage”. I personally thought it up to suite my notion of family, and I might be kind enough to even let straight couples try it…

If they dare![maniacal laughter]

You must enter into Nessiage understanding and knowing fully the consequences, and you’d sign your name to each single one as a legal government contract along with your spouse in front of witnesses. And, yes, there would be consequences!

With Nessiage “till death do us part” is literal. You part, and it’s capital punishment!

Well okay, not that strict, but it really really sucks for the one wanting out. In addition to fines, you’d even agree to jail time for abandonment, if you can’t show one of a couple possible means of escape. For example, to get out of your obligation, either you or your partner would have to show, hmm… 1. the other guy abused you or your kids, 2. he already physically abandoned, 3. either of you were coerced or deceived into Nessiage, and/or (I’m sure I’m not thinking of something). The one who abused or abandoned better brace for a legal pounding.

You both want out because you just “fell out of love”? Too bad. You both then get a legal punishment. (I suppose we could give some consideration here for those who entered Nessiage not yet knowing they were actually straight ;-).)

You’d agree to sexual fidelity and agree to jail time if you didn’t live up to it, regardless of if your spouse complains or not. Maybe it should be house/work arrest to keep the bread won and home made? Same goes with making children who are not to be parented by the couple in Nessiage, even though, for gay types, that doesn’t include sexual infidelity that often. (Straight people make kids like that all the time, but even gays have been known to stray ;-)).

Children born in Ness-lock (waited near a page for that one), or adopted into it, also hold legal ground for lawsuit against the cheater, as in Nessiage those contractual obligations apply to any possible children that you may become the parent of, by biology, adoption, whatever.

Also, Nessiage is a one-time deal. You’d agree to give up your right to Nessy another even if you survive a split (unless you were the one abused, and so on).

No, it’s nothing to be entered into lightly, and perhaps people should best settle for marriage first, just to be sure ;-).

Finally, additional terms may be added. Just for me, in my contract, nessiage is a one time deal, no matter what, death, abandonment, whatever--I’d not recommend this for everyone. If I lose what I have, I’m done, for personal reasons that I don’t think I even fully understand.

To be clear, Nessiage gets you nothing more in taxes, rights, or insurance than what marriage currently gives. It doesn’t even have that neat name that gets folks so riled up. Nope, not a practical thing more for you (unless you count the peace of mind of your partner, your kids, and all their family).

I may be forgetting something, but I’m sure it could sound kind of harsh as is. Still, it's not like any of that added stuff would ever hurt me, personally. Why should I care?

So, you can have your precious "Marriage"; I want "Nessiage".

Nessiage is new, and made for gay couples, anyway. It's out of the goodness of our hearts that we'd let straight people even try it, though it really doesn't apply to them. Even though Nessiage would be irrevocably cheapened to let even one non-gay couple enter into it (No offence, right?).

I bet many straight couples, though, wouldn’t want it anyway; they’d want all the rights and none of that extra responsibility. Fine. Great, even. Don’t get it then. Get “marriage”, la-de-da :-p. Get marriage, and get all the legal benefits, with none of that harsh commitment stuff.

It's understandable; you want to keep your options open, no fault divorce, and so on. Just tell your fiancée, and your family, and her family that you’d rather have “marriage” than that gay “nessiage”, and you’d have nothing to worry about, and everybody’s happy; the sanctity of marriage is preserved.

4 comments:

The first thing that came to my mind as stricter than traditional marriage while reading this was temple marriage. It's not quite nessiage, certainly, but still pretty strict compared to "death do you part".

L“The first thing that came to my mind as stricter than traditional marriage while reading this was temple marriage”

Ah, I’m talking about a revolutionary change in civil law. If those who cheat in a temple marriage were threatened with jail time, and given no opportunity to remarry, Utah would be quite different ;-).

Besides, Nessiage is closer to the Catholic view, isn’t it? “Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” And so on. They go further than even such a traditionalist as myself (I'm only half joking :-)) and don’t allow divorce or remarriage, in any case. They only offer rare judgments that the original marriage was invalid from the start, but no way to invalidate an existing marriage based on action occurring after the ceremony. The LDS position is more lenient than both Nessiage and Catholic Marriage, as far as I can tell. At least I’ve seen no laws in our legislature to suggest otherwise, no such attempts to amend our constitution ;-).

“but still pretty strict compared to "death do you part".”

Hey, that’s a bonus, not an added restriction (depending upon how one regards their family :-)).